The Liars' Club

by Mary Karr

Daddy said a Republican was somebody who couldn’t enjoy eating unless he knew somebody else was hungry, which I took to be gospel for longer than I care to admit.

But I was spiteful enough to tell her that I didn’t much want to sign up with any god who sent tidal waves crashing down on trailer parks but took time for her old wart.

As to why she hadn’t told us all this before—about the marriages and the lost children—her exact sentence stays lodged in my head, for it’s one of the more pathetic sentences a sixty-year-old woman can be caught uttering: “I thought you wouldn’t like me anymore.”